Story+1984-11-15+St.+Louis,+MO

´´Alright....come on, boys....ready for a little ´Darlington County´? (crowd cheers) gonna take a little roadtrip.... (....) They got him for no license, no registration, drunken disorderly, failing to give a good account of himself and impersonating a human being....´´
 * 15.11.84 St.Louis, MO, intro to ´´Darlington County´´**

´´This is a song about blind faith....´cause everybody´s waited for somebody who wasn´t ever coming back.....´´
 * 15.11.84 St.Louis, MO, intro to ´´Reason To Believe´´**

´´Thanks....oh, when I was a kid....there used to be this big house that sat on the hill on the outskirts of town....and uh....I remember late at night sometimes, my mother´d, she´d always be in the livingroom with just the TV on and my father´d be sitting in the kitchen with the lights out, smoking a cigarette....and sometimes he´d ask me if I wanted to take a ride and uh ....we´d get in the car and we´d drive through town, he would go up by this big house and he´d pull over by the side of the road and sit there and smoke a cigarette....that place always meant a lot to him, I don´t know what it meant....but uh....here´s ´Mansion On The Hill´....´´
 * 15.11.84 St.Louis, MO, intro to ´´Mansion On The Hill´´**

´´Thank you....there´s uh....there always seems to be events in your life that you end up marking your life by....I always remember where I was the day, I remember I was in gym class the day that, that somebody ran over and told me that, that John Kennedy had been shot, a kid came running across the field....and I remember where I was when I heard that Elvis Presley died....I was living on this farm out in New Jersey....and uh, it was hard to understand how somebody who took so many people´s loneliness away could´ve ended up being so lonely....but uh.....a dream that comes true can be a dangerous thing, this is called ´Bye Bye Johnny´....´´
 * 15.11.84 St.Louis, MO, intro to ´´Johnny Bye Bye´´**

´´(after the singalong) Good singing, good singing out there (chuckles)....now....now, this is a song about ancient history....I´m not talking about the Mesopotamians....or the Romans or the Trojans or the Italians....I´m talking about personal stuff....the kind of stuff you´re gonna read in the National Enquirer after I die....probably while I´m still living, as a matter of fact ....a little tale about my glory days....you see, when I was, I was young, I was interested in three things....one....was the guitar....the other one was that I could play pool and my dad did and his dad did....and the other one....you know!....so, like, one Christmas I got, my mother took me down to Sears and got me like one of these pool tables for 69.95 and I got it and it just fit in my bedroom....so like I used to bring my girlfriends over and I would go to my dad and I´d say, I´d say ´Dad, we´re gonna go up to my bedroom and play some pool for a little while´....he´d say ´Ok, ok´....but the kitchen that he used to sit in was right, was right underneath my bedroom so if he didn´t hear the guitar or if he didn´t hear the poolballs knocking around, he had a broomstick that he used to bang on the ceiling....but like I kind of, I had it all figured out ´cause I pulled the pooltable way over close to the bed and every once in a while I´d reach up and knock the poolballs around a little bit....I´m thinking all the time ....but anyway....as years went by I gave up pool....and of the other two, the guitar is the only one I became proficient at....but that third thing, I´m still looking for some volunteers who wanna practise, practise, practise.....it´s a lonely life....anyway, in the end all things must pass - isn´t that right? - and it ain´t nothing but glory days....ready, boys?....let me tell my story....´´
 * 15.11.84 St.Louis, MO, intro to ´´Glory Days´´**

´´Yeah....woah! (chuckles)....gotta keep looking for that Promised Land.....´´
 * 15.11.84 St.Louis, MO, intro to ´´The Promised Land´´**

´´Thank you....thanks.....this is, uh....I guess it was around 1978, I was, I was driving through Phoenix, Arizona....and I stopped in this drugstore and I found, I found this book called ´Born On The Fourth Of July´....which was written by a Vietnam Veteran named Ron Kovic ....it was his story, it´s a good book.....this is a song about, uh, coming home....´´
 * 15.11.84 St.Louis, MO, intro to ´´Shut Out The Light´´**

´´Thank you, this is....this is, uh, next song, I guess I thought I was writing about the town, the town that I grew up in as a kid....everybody, uh, I think everybody ends up kind of with a love-hate relationship with the place that they were born and where they were raised, I know I did when I was a kid, I couldn´t wait to get out and, just getting on the bus and going to New York all the time, you know....it seemed so, so narrowminded where I, where I was living but, uh, as you get a little older, it seems like, uh, you gotta face the fact that we all belong to something, that....that we got some responsobility to the place that we live in.... and, uh, tonight when you go out into the lobby, you´re gonna see some folks from, from Operation Food Search and what they do is they feed people that have been hit hard here by unemployment, who just ain´t making it, senior citizens, people that just don´t have enough to eat and....it´s a real, it´s a real rich country that we live in and we got 15 percent of the population living below the poverty line....well, uh, they´re trying to do something about it and, uh, this is your chance to do something about it, this is your hometown....´´
 * 15.11.84 St.Louis, MO, intro to ´´My Hometown´´**

´´As Shakespeare once said....´Wherefore art thou, my Cadillac?´....´´
 * 15.11.84 St.Louis, MO, intro to ´´Cadillac Ranch´´**

´´Well, now....this is a song....about the conflict....between worldly things and spiritual health....between desires of the flesh.....and spiritual ecstasy....now, where did this conflict begin?....well, it began in the beginning....in a place called the Garden of Eden....now, the Garden of Eden was originally believed to have been located in Mesopotamia....but the latest theological studies have found out that its actual location was ten miles south of Jersey City, off the New Jersey Turnpike....now, understand, in the Garden of Eden, there were none of the accoutrements of modern living....you didn´t have a Laundromat with a washer and a dryer you could go down and throw your clothes in, you didn´t have like a little toaster and Pop-Tarts that you could put in and watch Johnny Carson at night....you couldn’t go out on to the highway and buy a cheeseburger if you wanted one.....in the Garden of Eden there was no sin....there was no sex.....man lived in a state of innocence....now, when it comes to no sex, I prefer the state of guilt that I live in....but before the tour I decided to take a spiritual journey to the location of the Garden of Eden to find out the answer to some of these mysteries, to some of these conflicts, why my body pulls me one way, my soul pulls me the other way, what all this temptation is about....so I went there and I found out that that spot is now occupied by Happy Dan´s Celebrity Used Car Lot....I walked in....the man looked at me, he said ´Son, you need a yellow convertible, a four-door DeVille with a Continental spare, wide chrome wheels, air-conditioning, automatic heat, with a full fold-out bed in your backseat, eight-track tapedeck, TV and a phone so you can speak to your baby when you’re driving all alone’....I said ‘I’ll take two´....I said ´But, Dan, that´s not all I came for, what I wanna know is I wanna know the answer to some of these mysteries,´ he said ´Well, Son, that´s easy because right here, right here on these ten beautiful industrially-zoned acres in the beginning of time there was a beautiful, the most beautiful little paradise any man has ever seen....it was a place filled with many wondrous things : there was a Tree of Life, there was a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil....there was Adam, there was Eve.....and Eve was looking good....and when he kissed her, it was the first time that a man had ever kissed a woman....she had legs that were long and pale and when he touched her, it was the first time that a man had ever touched a woman....but somehow old Satan came slithering up and turned their love into a betrayal but right now, out here on this backlot, for 9995 and no money down....I have their getaway car....and if you´ve got the nerve to ride, Son....I´ve got the keys....to the first....pink Cadillac....´´
 * 15.11.84 St.Louis, MO, intro to ´´Pink Cadillac´´**

´´First, when we first went out, she and me, we were laughing all the time, always having a good time (?) but then it seemed that the things, the things that made her happy once, they didn´t make her happy no more.....and I was spending all my time trying to find something to make her happy again....and she´d be, she got to where she´d be hiding my keys at night, she didn´t want me going out....and it got hard to make her understand....that when I took the car out and when I won, it was the only time that I felt good about myself....and that to have just one thing....one thing in your life that you can do that makes you feel proud of yourself, that´s not too much for anybody to ask....is it?.... (....) Well, that was the night that we left....and we still don´t know where we´re going yet....but I guess that´ll come in time....as for this place....there´s a lot here that we´ll always remember....but you gotta keep searching.....´´
 * 15.11.84 St.Louis, MO, intro to ´´Racing In The Street´´**

´´Thank you....I´d like to, I´d like to just take a minute and thank everybody for coming down to the shows here in St.Louis....(?)....I´d like to thank you for your support of Operation Food Search....oh....this town´s your town, this country´s your country so fight for it....´´
 * 15.11.84 St.Louis, MO, intro to ´´Born To Run´´**

´´Alright...this is a little bit early but come on, Roy.... (....) Here he comes now, he´s packing up that souped-up sled....flying over the North Pole ....flying over New Jersey....has everybody been good now? (crowd cheers) you don´t have to be good yet, it´s too early, you can wait till, like, around, uh, around the 25th of November, then you gotta start, till then you can be as bad as you want, that´s what I say....´´
 * 15.11.84 St.Louis, MO, intro to ´´Santa Claus Is Coming To Town´´**

//Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi//